CHAPTER FIFTEEN
NAE
Ari stood in the middle of my apartment looking at everything I had tried to keep outside the frame.
The empty wall where my television had been.
The red notice folded on the kitchen counter.
The stack of daycare papers beneath a grocery-store coupon booklet.
Amir’s toy bin with one side cracked because I kept saying I would replace it after the next check.
I had spent so much time being embarrassed that I never stopped to think about what the truth would look like once somebody stepped inside it.
Amir held his dinosaur against his chest and watched us from behind my leg.
Ari put her purse on the couch. She didn’t take off her coat.
“Start at the beginning.”
There was no softness in her voice, but there wasn’t yelling either. Somehow, that made it harder.
I sat on the arm of the couch because my knees felt weak. “Daycare called me Tuesday. They said if I didn’t pay by Friday, they couldn’t take him Monday.”
“How much?”
“Three twenty.”
“And the rent?”
“Seven eighty-two. My landlord taped that notice up Thursday.”
Her eyes moved toward the counter. “Malik didn’t send anything?”
“Seventy-five dollars after I begged him all week.”
“Seventy-five?”
“He had Amir six hours last Saturday so, apparently, that was his contribution to fatherhood.”
Ari’s face tightened, but she didn’t let the anger move her off the subject. “When did you transfer the money?”
“Thursday night. Seven twenty.”
“And, then, you told me the payment was handled.”
“I thought I could replace it before the host charged the card.”
“With what?”
I rubbed my bare wrist. “I didn’t know yet. Extra shifts. Malik. Selling stuff.”
Ari followed my hand. “Where’s your bracelet?”
I looked down.
“Nae.”
“Pawn shop.”
Her mouth opened, then closed.
“And the television?”
“Sold it.”
She turned away from me and pressed her fingers to her forehead. Her birthday curls fell over one shoulder, still perfect from every angle.
Ari got flowers. A private room. A black van with lights in the ceiling. A bracelet with diamonds.
I got a red paper on my door and seventy-five dollars from a man who helped make my child.
The difference wasn’t her fault.
“Jori sent you two hundred,” she said.
“Yes.”
“How much are you short now?”
“Forty-five.”
Ari laughed once. There was no humor in it. “All of this over forty-five dollars.”
“It wasn’t forty-five when I started.”
“I know that. I’m saying you let the lie get this big when you could’ve called me before it got here.”
“And said what?”
“The truth.”
“That’s real easy now that you standing in my apartment seeing the notice.”
Her eyes snapped to mine. “You think I needed to see you struggling before I’d care?”
“I think you had a lot going on.”
“It was a birthday, Brenae. Not open-heart surgery.”
Amir pressed closer to me.
I lowered my voice, “It didn’t feel like I could drop this in the middle of everything. You had the brunch, dinner, club, pictures, the house next weekend—”
“So, because I planned something for myself, you decided I wouldn’t care that your son was about to lose daycare?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“That’s what you did.”
I stood. “I decided I didn’t want to be the reason something got messed up again.”
“Again?”
The word was already out. I could’ve lied around it. I was too tired.
“Yes, again.”
Ari stared at me.
“Every time we plan something, I’m the one checking my account first,” I said.
“I’m the one asking if Amir can come, if my mom can keep him, if Malik gonna switch weekends, if I can afford an outfit everybody else already ordered.
Y’all say it don’t matter, but then I see the face when I’m late or when I say I can’t go. ”
“Nobody makes a face.”
“Everybody makes a face.”
“Because sometimes, you wait until the last minute to tell us.”
“Because I’m trying to make it work until I can’t.”
“That’s not on me.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“Then, stop talking like my birthday took food out Amir’s mouth.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Her eyes filled.
Mine did too, which irritated me because I had spent the last two days fighting tears and, now, they wanted to come during an argument.
“You want the ugly truth?” I asked. “For one minute, yes, I was mad. Not at you for having a birthday. At life. At Malik. At myself. At sitting in that restaurant watching people bring you gifts while I knew my graduation bracelet was behind glass. I was mad that your biggest problem at brunch was whether Cam put his hand on some girl’s waist and mine was whether my child had somewhere to go Monday so I could keep my job. ”
Ari flinched.
Regret came immediately.
I should’ve stopped.
Instead, hurt kept talking.
“And, then, I felt guilty because you my friend and I love you. I wanted your birthday to be beautiful. I just didn’t know how to tell you my life was falling apart in the middle of it.”
For a few seconds, the only sound in the room was Amir tapping the dinosaur’s tail against my thigh.
Ari wiped beneath one eye. “You think that was my biggest problem?”
I looked at her.
“Cam might be cheating on me. I thought I was pregnant last night. I took a test in Kye’s salon bathroom wearing my birthday dress.”
My anger left so quickly, it made me feel empty.
“Ari—”
“It was negative. My period still hasn’t come. And I didn’t tell anybody until last night because I wanted everything to look good too.” She pressed her lips together. “I understand being ashamed. I understand trying to fix something before people see it. That’s why this hurts.”
Amir looked up at her. “You cry?”
Ari turned her face, but he had already seen.
He walked around me and stood in front of her. “Don’t cry.”
Her mouth trembled. “I’m okay, baby.”
He held the dinosaur out to her.
Ari took it. “Thank you.”
“He bite,” Amir warned.
“Of course, he do.”
Amir nodded seriously and climbed onto the couch.
The little interruption lowered the temperature in the room without fixing anything.
Ari sat at the opposite end of the couch. The dinosaur rested in her lap.
“I would’ve helped you,” she said.
“I know.”
“No, you know now because you got caught. You didn’t trust me enough to let me choose.”
“You’re right.”
She looked almost surprised.
“I was wrong,” I said. “Not just for taking it. For lying every time you asked. For making Jori carry it after she found out. For sitting at your dinner like nothing was wrong. All of it.”
“I hate that everybody keeps deciding when I’m ready for my own truth.”
I thought about the way Kye kept locking her phone. The way Jori had said ask Kye. Cam’s face when his eyes landed on Kye at dinner.
“Is there something else going on?”
Ari looked toward me. “Apparently, everybody keeps asking me that too.”
“I mean with Kye and Cam.”
Her shoulders stiffened. “Why would you say Kye?”
“Jori said she had something to tell you. Then, she stopped herself.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing clear. Just that everybody keeps deciding you can only handle the truth after they clean it up.”
Ari placed the dinosaur beside her. “Did Jori tell you Cam is cheating?”
“No.”
“Did Kye?”
“No.”
“You see something?”
“Only the way they look at each other every time his name comes up.”
Ari stood so fast, Amir jumped.
“I didn’t mean—”
“I’m not mad at you for that.”
She picked up her purse. “Call the host.”
“What?”
“Tell her you’ll have the forty-five today.”
“Ari, I can’t take—”
Her phone was already in her hand. Mine vibrated on the table.
ARI sent you $45.
I stared at the notification.
“I’m paying the rest of the reservation because all four of us already put money into it,” she said. “That does not mean we’re good. It doesn’t mean I even want to go anymore.”
“I understand.”
“And Thursday, when you get paid, you put back everything you borrowed. Jori gets hers first.”
“I was already going to.”
“Don’t tell me what you were gonna do. Just do it.”
I nodded.
She reached for the door.
“Ari.”
Her hand stayed on the knob.
“I’m sorry.”
“I heard you.”
She didn’t say she forgave me.
I didn’t ask her to.
Amir slid off the couch and ran over. “Ari hug.”
Ari crouched and let him wrap both arms around her neck. She held him tight, eyes closed, and kissed his cheek.
When she stood, she looked at me once.
There was love there.
There was hurt too.
I had spent years believing one canceled out the other.
It didn’t.
After she left, I called the host and paid the reinstatement amount. The confirmation arrived before I ended the call.
The trip was saved.
Our friendship wasn’t.
I opened DAY ONES OR DIES and typed three different apologies.
Deleted all of them.
Then, I sent the only thing that didn’t ask Ari to make me feel better.
NAE: Reservation is confirmed. I put the money back Thursday. I’m sorry I lied to all of y’all.
Jori read it first.
Kye read it next.
Ari’s name never appeared beneath the message.
For the first time since middle school, the group chat stayed quiet long enough for my screen to go dark.